SoCalHoops High School News

"We Care Classic":
Monroe v. Gardena--(Nov. 26 1998)

We were very pleased with what we saw of Hollywood yesterday, and pleasantly surprised too.   But we were even more surprised with the Monroe team's performance yesterday agaisnt  Gardena, a team which is not really very adept but is certainly well coached, by 10 year coach Rod Tange, who told us that he's in his last year of coaching; his wife wants him to spend more time with his two young children and so he'll transfer to Marshall at the end of the year (he lives in Pasadena) to cut down on the commute time, and he'll give up coaching and just teach.   But at least for this year, he's still doing his thing. Gardena finished last year very deep into the 3-A playoffs, losing to Birmingham in the semifinals, and they largely made it as far as they did because of Jermaine Harper, who is now in prep school.  In fact, he's attending the same school as Luke Minor (7'-3" Sr. C), Blue Ridge Academy, in Virginia.  This year, they've really got a bunch of new players. Here's the roster:

Roy Dennis (5'-9" Sr. PG)
Chris Jones (5'-9" Sr. G)
Julio Robert (5'-11" Sr. PG)
Brandon Drayton (5'-11"  Sr. G)
Divyesh Bhakta (6'-0" Sr. F)
Gerjuan Frison (6'-2" So. F)
Arnold Johnson (6'-2" Sr. F)
Brian Vernon (6'-6" Sr. F/C)
Mike Shelton 6'-0" Jr. SF)
Jaime Gonzalez (6'-6" Jr. F/C)

Among these players, some who stood out were Roy Dennis, who has an excellent handle and good court sense, making great passes, Julio Robert, another excellent ballhandler with a great crossover, Brandon Drayton, a good three point shooter who really extends the defense, Arnold Johnson, an agile athletic player who runs the floor, defends but is a bit thin, almost to the point of being skinny, but then so was Tayshaun Prince, so we won't hold that against him.  Brion Vernon, another thin player is one of the better shooters we saw last night, and he's very athletic, and has a great fallaway jumper from about 15' out, and can also penetrate and jumps well.

Monroe featured:

Bo Brooks (6'-3" So. F)
Chris Neal (5'-11" So. SG)
Howard Johnokushi (5'-7" Sr. PG)
Cesar Guttierez (6'-2" Sr. SF)
Robert Palofax (5'-10" Jr. PG)
Cesar Peregia (5'-9" Sr. PG)
Jose Sanches (6'-6" Sr. F)
Eric Serna (6'-7" Sr. PF/C0
Marcus West (6'-2" Sr. SF/SF)
Brasillio Castillo (6'-1" Sr. SG/SF)

There were a couple of other guys who we didn't see play, and who were on the bench. We only got their names and classes, but not position or heights:  Quincy Jones (Sr.), Alfredo Cuevas (So.), Emmanual Maisel (Sr.), and we'll try to get some info on them tomorrow.

The Gardena v. Monroe game was a tight one all the way, and Monroe used it's great patience and the superior ball-handling and court vision of its young point guard, Robert Palofax, and the superior athleticism and shooting of it's twin tower post players, Jose Sanchez (6'-6" Sr. F) an agile, wirey guy who runs and shoots out to three, and Eric Serna, who is a better version of Jose, and stronger and tougher on the inside game, and he's an inch taller too, all to their advantage.  Palofax picked up his third personal foul late in the first half, but it didn't seem to faze him, but it got to the Monroe coach who pulled him and put in Howard Johnokushi (5'-7" Sr. PG), who really had trouble against even moderate pressure and found himself out of position a lot. The result was that when Palofax came out, Monroe was leading by almost 10; when the coach finally pulled Howard, it was a two point game, and Cesar Peregia came in to finish the half, and managed to calm things down, but didn't stretch the lead and in fact Monroe had taken a lead in the first half and turned it into a one point deficit, with Gardena ahead 22-21.

The second half was all Palofax and Serna though and they played really well.  With 1:19 left to play, the score was 45-43 with Monroe leading. And in that last minute, Gardena finally decided to go to a full court press, something they should have done about two minutes earlier, because all it resulted in doing was to send Palofax to the free-throw line 3 times in the last minute, where he managed to hit a couple, extending the lead to 48-43.  Then with 23 seconds left in the game, Brian Vernon of Gardena hit a great three point shot from the left side of the arc tobring the score to 48-46 with a chance to still pull it out for Gardena.

Gardena quickly called a timeout, but the only thing they had to show for it was to foul Serna, sending him to the line where he hit one, with 18 seconds remaining, to bring the score to 49-46.  Monroe got the rebound off the miss on the second free throw, and spread the court, and Gardena had to foul Palofax to stop the clock.  With only 4 seconds remaining, Palofax went to the line, shooting two and made them both, and Monroe won it 51-46.

This was a better game than we thought it would have been, played by two scrappy and tough young teams.  For our money, Palofax and Serna will be big time players in the Valley region this year, and while Monroe might not shake up Grant, North Hollywood or Sylmar, they could very well win their Mid-Valley League over the other teams in the league like Poly, Reseda and Van Nuys.

We'll be watching as Monroe and Hollywood go at it for third place tomorrow in the We Care Classic.  Hope you will be too.

©Copyright 1998 All rights reserved
Questions? Comments? Need Information?
Contact: jegesq@SoCalHoops.com